


Untouchable

by xantissa



Series: Bleeding Skies [8]
Category: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-13
Updated: 2012-07-13
Packaged: 2017-11-09 22:01:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/458927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xantissa/pseuds/xantissa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sephiroth might have been a trained beast, but he was still a beast and encroaching on his territory was bound to have an effect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untouchable

Rude watched his partner sleep, curled on the office couch in the most improbable position, with head hanging off it at an angle that would suffocate any other human being. Yet Reno only snored that much louder and slept on, obviously enjoying the shaft of midday sunlight that cut through the room.

Rude preferred to stay out of the direct sunlight, shadows more to his liking. 

He pulled his sunglasses off, because right now there wasn’t anybody to see him and allowed himself a small smile. Reno was a good partner. Loyal, resourceful and so full of life. A perfect counterpart to his often too reserved nature. 

Rude didn’t truly expect to ever have another permanent partner, not after Kyle. The Turk who trained him, who was Rude’s first true partner both in work as in life. They were lovers for all those years they partnered together. 

There were no pictures, no tangible signs of that man ever existing and Rude found, after so many years, that he wasn’t sure if he remembered Kyle right.

Reno never asked why only Tseng and Rude were the oldest of the Turks, why there wasn’t anyone else. It was true that the Turks were a strictly elite unit, that never numbered more than 12 people at a time. Well, ever since Reno joined, the Turks never exceeded eight members altogether. 

It happened in only one night. Less than ten minutes for the Turks as they were before, to cease to exist.

And it was all Old Man Shinra’s fault.

Everyone knew that after Sephiroth came back from Wutai, the man was different. He was still their trained dog, performing tricks as ordered. But he had tasted blood, tasted freedom and realized, maybe for the first time, truly, just how much damage he could inflict.

Veld, in an unofficial briefing, warned them to avoid engaging Sephiroth at all costs. Everything short of direct order from Old Man Shinra was to be ignored. 

They thought they knew what they were doing, they thought themselves to be so damn dangerous. They were Turks, damn elite spies and killers, as badass as they came.

So when the order came from Hojo to collect one of the SOLDIER First Class for “treatment” they thought little of it. After all it was merely a Commander. Zack Fair was known to hang around Sephiroth a lot and even rumored to be in a sexual relationship with the prized General.

Well he wasn’t the first, after all the silver haired man fucked half his elite unit and that had never meant anything.

So they collected the boy, making use of his confusion and the fact that they had legitimate orders. The boy was sedated and shipped off to Hojo the same day. 

Rude and Tseng were the only ones out of Midgar at that time, spending time in Junon with Rufus Shinra, training the boy not to be the idiot his father was.

The first signs that something wasn’t right came that evening. When Tseng tried to contact headquarters and report in with an update for Veld. 

There was no response.

Barely thirty minutes later they got a frantic call from the Old Man Shinra himself to drop everything and come back to Midgar.

They realized why, on the helicopter, when Tseng managed to remotely access the Shinra security videos. 

The man didn’t even try to hide. Didn’t even bother with any kind of pretending.

They watched, helplessly as Sephiroth entered the seventeeth floor, Turk Headquarters, and started walking towards the lounge where off duty Turks usually gathered. Dressed in his trademark leather, long coat, open to bare his chest and the Masamune, still sheathed, at his side he looked almost regal. His hair looked white on the black and white screen, it flowed behind him swaying with the rhythm of his measured steps. 

Rude watched, helplessly, as Sahire, the beautiful explosives expert rounded a corner and paused, obviously surprised at seeing Sephiroth there. He saw her open her mouth, shifting instinctively into the defensive stance.

There was no sound on the recording, and Rude was grateful for that small mercy as he watched Sephiroth unsheathe his sword and behead the beautiful woman in a single move. Through the spray of blood Rude could see as the General shifted into haste, his movements nothing but a pale streak of light as he slashed the lounge door and went inside.

The lounge had no cameras, and Rude was grateful for that too. It still didn’t save him from witnessing Kyle’s death.

He watched as Kyle stumbled out of the room that became a deathtrap for all the people gathered there. Watched as his partner, his lover, tried to escape, shooting back to try and stop his assailant.

Rude and Tseng, watched in silence, as Sephiroth emerged from the room, as cold and untouched as always and paused in the doorway. They watched, disbelieving as the bullets burned to ashes in the air before ever touching the pale soldier.

Sephiroth calmly changed his grip on that horrifically long sword, the only thing covered in blood, and moved. He was on Kyle between one heartbeat and the next, the blade of his sword sliding though Kyle’s neck like butter, killing him instantly.

Rude made no sound as he watched the man lean down to calmly clean his sword on Kyle’s body and then sheathe it, obviously no longer finding anything threatening in there. 

Then he leaned down again, tangled his gloved hand into Kyle’s hair and yanked, separating the head from the rest of the body.

Rude wasn’t even aware he was biting his knuckles as he watched Shinra’s prized experiment gather the heads of all the killed Turks like some kind of demented souvenirs, and then head straight to Old Man Shinra’s office, carrying the bleeding and gruesome trophies by the hair. He didn’t seem to care that he walked amongst the administrative staff and guards. He made his way to the very top, right to Old Man Shinra’s office.

He threw the severed heads like garbage right at the man, making his secretary shriek and faint and said very clearly, so that all the hidden microphones in the room caught it.

“Zackary Fair is to be returned to his quarters by midnight.”

Shinra said nothing, too busy having a heart attack and most probably soiling himself.

The General smiled at him, almost benevolently, with a kind of deliberate cruelty none of them had ever seen from him before. Later, they would understand that it was one of the first signs of the madness that would one day take over the man.

“I trust you will comply with my request with all due haste.” The General purred, that half smirk still firmly in place and his inhuman eyes set firmly on the President.

Then he simply turned around and left, as if he didn’t just murder ten people and carried their mutilated body parts through half the tower.

Three hours later, twenty minutes before the deadline, an unconscious Zack Fair was placed in his own bed, in his own apartment at the level reserved for SOLDIERS First Class.

It took them weeks to track down and silence any and all witnesses to the massacre.

It took five broken ribs and a broken hand before Rude could go back to work and not try to kill Sephiroth on sight.

It took six years for him to agree on a permanent partner again.

And now Sephiroth was back. Rufus was still young and Reno was all gung ho about fighting The Nightmare.

Rude watched as his partner did another extraordinary stretch and curled into a position that should be impossible for human spine.

As Reno snored even more loudly and grumbled something under his breath, Rude thought, that Reno was going to be his last partner.

One way or the other.

The end.  
2009


End file.
